http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
IN ORDER TO PROTEST an especially misguided decision by the U.S.
Census Bureau, I spent a recent Sunday evening with two hundred other
demonstrators, drinking glass after glass of kosher champagne and dancing
myself into a sweaty frenzy.

Actually, the traditional Jewish wedding of two close friends hadn't
been planned as a public response to the follies of policy makers in
Washington, D.C. But even if the bureaucratic bumblers took little note
of our festive gathering, its unmistakable meaning conflicted with the
very essence of a new and singularly foolish government policy.

In the year 2000, the census short form received by more than 80% of
all American households will, for the first time, pose no questions at
all about marital status. The official justification for the new policy
is to save time for respondents and to simplify the census process.

But
the same "quick and easy" short form that no longer wants to know whether
you're married, single, widowed or divorced, still manages to include two
different inquiries about ethnicity. It asks, first, if the person is
"Spanish/Hispanic/Latino" and then separately demands that the subject
identify his/her "race" by checking one of 15 boxes, including such
alternatives as "Guamanian or Chamorro," "Asian Indian" and "Samoan."

The
long form going out to some 16 million households (which takes 38
minutes, rather than 10 minutes to complete) still includes the basic
questions about marital status. But the changes in the ubiquitous short
form-the only contact with the census process for the vast majority of
citizens -- remain highly significant. According to family therapist
Diane Sollee, coordinator of a Washington conference on "Smart Marriages,
Happy Families," this decision sends "a message about what the government
sees as important. That message is that nobody cares anymore."

If that is the case, then why do all of today's politicians prattle
so passionately about marriage and family? If personal life amounts to
nothing more than a purely private concern, how is it that leaders of
both parties seem so determined to make it a public issue? Every one of
the Republican presidential candidates promotes new governmental
initiatives to support the institution of marriage, while Vice President
Gore unabashedly offered "faith and family" as the centerpiece of his
announcement of candidacy. In fact, when endorsing Gore at a carefully
choreographed event on June 1st, Hillary Rodham Clinton specifically
cited his exemplary record as a family man. Using exactly the same words,
she twice described the Vice President as a "remarkable husband and
father." If marital status hardly matters anymore, then why mention his
happy domestic history as one of the Vice President's qualifications for
the White House?

Most Americans-including, apparently, the First Lady of the
Land-refuse to accept the idea that we live in a post-marriage age. A
recent study by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University
revealed that the vast majority of American teenagers (72 percent of
boys and 83 percent of girls) thought "a good marriage and family life"
was important-and those majorities have increased for both males and
females since the mid-1970's. Ironically, at the very moment that our
officially empowered pulse-takers disregard marital status as a subject
worth noting on census forms, the public seems more stubbornly convinced
than ever before that knowing someone's domestic arrangements tells us
something important about him.

Certainly, it tells us something more significant than questions about
race or about "Hispanic origin," which the short form still contains.

Nearly all Americans accept the idea that it makes sense for the
government and legal system to treat people differently after they marry.
This personal commitment involves public consequences, concerning your
taxes, your property division, the fate of your offspring, your personal
estate and many other areas. That's why so many leaders of the gay
community plead for society to sanction same-sex marriage: they
acknowledge that official recognition of this institution is appropriate
and important, and want that recognition extended to homosexual unions.

Gay activists care profoundly about this issue not because they dismiss
the importance of marriage, but because they understand - and endorse -
the overwhelming impact of such social formalities.

Racial classification, on the other hand, strikes many people as
unnecessary and unfair, and most of us remain distinctly uncomfortable
with government treating citizens differently according to the color of
their skin. For one thing, so many Americans boast mixed ancestry today
that census respondents frequently can provide only uncertain or
arbitrary answers to questions about their origins. It's not hard to know
whether you're married or single, but what about those people with one
black grandfather and who are, therefore, one-fourth black? Should they
check the box for "African American," "White" or "Some other race?"

And
what if you boast one grandfather born in Mexico, who has left you the
name "Gonzalez," but one grandmother was born in Korea, and the two other
grandparents emigrated from Germany? Do you qualify for
"Spanish/Hispanic/Latino" status-or for Korean "race"-- or neither? The
government has no right and no need to force its citizens to make such
idiotic distinctions.

If the short form can't be bothered with asking whether you're married
or not, then why should it demand two different responses involving
racial identity? There has always been an official, bureaucratic
component to marriage-going to city hall to get your wedding license-but
it's a characteristic of wretched, racist regimes (Nazi Germany, the old
Soviet Union, apartheid South Africa) to require a designation of
ethnicity on government forms and identity cards.

The joyous celebrants at the wedding I just attended understood
fundamental truths that the census bureau chooses to ignore. The fact
that the glowing groom and gorgeous bride decide to formalize their
relationship is not a private matter: it is profoundly public. The giddy
guests toast one another and exchange hearty congratulations ("Mazel
tov!") because they're happy not just for the new couple: they are also
happy for themselves. The marriage impacts more than the principals. It
influences the community, social continuity, the future-all in profoundly
positive ways.

Despite recent suggestions that your personal life is "nobody's
business," we seem increasingly eager to affirm that the covenant of
marriage is everybody's business. Just check the latest styles and
trends: quiet elopements and Las Vegas wedding chapels are out, and big,
blowout banquets and receptions are back in. That's especially
appropriate at a moment when leaders of every political persuasion agree
that the institution of matrimony deserves special encouragement and
support, not new expressions of public contempt. Maybe, someday, even the
bone-headed bean counters at the census bureau may get the message.